I wish to express to you my sincere thanks. You wouldn't be reading this if you hadn't clicked on one of my stories and not enjoyed it, or least contemplated reading it.

It warms my heart that you did. That is after all why I write.

I wish to have you laugh, have you cry, perhaps titillate you a bit, but in the final analysis, to make your day just a tiny bit better.

If I've succeeded in doing so, then please high five me with your vote. It will only make that piece of work more accessible to others. You can help me make someone else's day a bit sunnier too.

Of course, public comments and private feedback are always more than welcome.

For those that are interested, I think my short series A Passion Play is my most fun, yet complex piece of work, Bonsai Hunting is probably my best and Just A Robinson's Affair my sweetest story.

But please don't discount the rest. It's a real challenge to place my stories into the right genre. Like the tired cliche 'square peg into round hole', the stories don't want to fit into one alone.

Please enjoy them all.

Update Aug. 2015

A continued thanks to all my readers, for the votes and the positive feedback.

Seriously, it warms my heart to know that you’ve enjoyed something I created.

My latest, A Fragile Cup of Witch’s Brew, is wildly popular. I knew as soon as I wrote it, that it’s my best work to date. I pushed all other writing projects aside and just focused in on that piece until it was posted. There are three others near completion, plus two others in limbo.

You may be interested in learning how (and why) I got into creative writing - of erotica, no less.

It’s a bit of a strange story.

My good friend died. Arguably my best friend. He was eighty one though and old enough to be my father. In some ways he was. (My own father died while I was still a teenager.)

The nonsense that he and I would get up to…always fuelled by red wine. We’d be cooking, eating, mushroom collecting (Shaggy Manes, got to be in the fry pan within five minutes), lots of partying and always, always, discussing anything and everything. He had a sharp mind. He was wisdom and experience in physical form. And what a wild life he and his wife had led!

But we had fun too.

We even had a marijuana growing contest (he won both years). He and his wife would soak theirs in pure alcohol and make a poultice for their (and our other neighbours’) sore joints. They swore by it. I smoked mine and eventually managed to talk him into trying that too.

What a hoot!

We had a lot of laughs.

But we had tears too through the years, both tears of sorrow and tears of joy.

He was a true friend.

I remember laughing my head off as he was telling me, shortly before he died, how he was sweating bullets one day when a plainclothes detective knocked on his door wanting to ask some questions about a completely unrelated matter (in which he was just being the good, helpful citizen), they sat and talked in his kitchen with his prize winning massive Hindu Kush pot plant just five feet away on the kitchen balcony, and barely out of sight.

He’d get seriously pissed off though, if I didn’t stop at his place on my way home from work on a Friday night.

He had a massive stroke and died in the ICU.

He knew it was coming and told me many times that he’s ready for it.

He was at my dining room table feasting on roast beast one week before he died. I spoke to him the day before.

I was lying on my couch a few days after the funeral feeling really sad for myself and the whole world in general. I was reading Literotica on my phone to try to escape and I remember thinking, ‘This is such crap, I bet I can do a better job.’

‘Really?’ answered my friend from beyond the grave in a crystal clear inner voice, ‘Bullshit! Let’s see you do it. Put your brain where your mouth is. Let’s see you come up with something better than what you’re reading.’

What?

“In fact, if you want to get over grieving for me, that’s exactly what you need to do.’

What?

I could hear him laughing.

The prick. So frikkin’ typical of him too.

Seriously? Erotic fiction?

‘It’s up to you.’ Laughter. I could hear him pouring a glass of red wine followed by more laughter.

Even from beyond the grave…the prick, still got me.

I loved him dearly. Still do.

I had a small problem though. Short of business letters and meeting minutes, I’d never written anything since I was in high school. And even that was by coercion.

I don’t even read fiction. Everthing I read always was, and still remains, 99% non-fiction, aside from the odd porn story, (and modern news and op-ed, which seems to be mainly fiction too).

I had to learn grammar, the proper use of punctuation, story structure, timing. Everything.

He was in frikkin’ hysterics.

But I did it. I think I’ve succeeded.

And now I’m over his loss (in a way). I arrived at acceptance.

With his help.

I still have lunch with his widowed wife every now and again (who gets her grandson to buy her marijuana now). She sold the big house and moved away.

And I’m still writing and enjoying it. I think I’ve moved from therapy onto something else.

I guess each story will always be dedicated to him, in a way.

Have a glass of red wine waiting for me buddy. I’ll be along in a while, on my own time though.